Cooked Veggies Can Weaken Immune System

You may believe cooking is needed for food to get rid of bacteria and make food more digestible. This is true in vegetables that are more difficult for some to digest raw, such as broccoli(cruciferous family) but most foods do not become more digestible once cooked.

As far back as 1930, Dr Paul Kouchakoff observed that after eating a meal, a person`s white blood cells (leukocytes) would increase. Generally an increase in white blood cell count can indicate a stress reaction by the body. Eating a raw meal does not have this same effect on the body. He also observed that most foods that have been altered produce this immune suppressing effect.

Our immune system is basically finishing the digestion process for us, although this is a function that it was not meant to do consistently. It is wise to minimize this effect by eating fresh, raw vegetables to go with anything cooked. Also chew your food thoroughly and that will lessen the immune systems response to the cooked food.

A good practice is to eliminate as much processed, altered, and cooked food from your diet as possible. That includes milk, as it is pasteurized and homogenized. Try to removing sugar and white flour from your diet also. Begin eating most meals with a big salad or fresh cut vegetables to save your immune system a lot of unnecessary work.

You can well imagine the toll this has taken on your immune system after years of cooked and processed foods. If you at least include raw vegetables or supplement with live whole foods with your cooked meals, you are giving your immune system a break. Nutrition from live whole food have positive effects, like keeping you healthy! Cooking also can take away the antioxidants and reduce the amount of bioavailable vitamins. In effect, you double your benefits when you can eat raw whole foods.

If you can not give up cooked food, at least add some raw whole foods to your diet to prevent further harming to your body. Feed your body the whole foods it wants and needs so it has a chance to heal itself since that is what it has been designed to do. Eat the right foods so you can work on having a healthier body and mind!